


Prism

by beetle



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: A thrill to hold one's cheek to, Boys Kissing, Confessions, Drunken Kissing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Failboats In Love, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Idiots in Love, Implied Sara Ryder/SAM UST, M/M, Mentions of Scott Ryder/Gil Brodie UST, Reyes's Lack of Conscience, Scott's Overabundance of Conscience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 08:12:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11144418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: If Reyes is a chaotic spectrum of colors, then Scott’s the prism capable of refracting him into white light.





	Prism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stitchcasual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: AU, kinda. But also kinda not? Post-game angst and feels. And kissing. Spoilers.

 

“You look like you’re waiting for someone.”

 

Leaning on the bar-top at _Kralla’s Song_ , Scott Ryder signals Umi for another drink. She rolls her eyes, but obliges, sloshing more of . . . whatever vile, alien swill Scott’s been downing all evening, into his tall, plastic-alloy cup. Then she moves back down to the other end of the counter and resumes . . . whatever else it is she does. Scott glowers into the murky, cloudy, slightly urine-colored depths before guzzling down half the cup with grim determination.

 

At least it’s got fizz. Scott’s _pretty_ sure _urine_ doesn’t have fizz. Unless there’s something _very_ wrong.

 

“Looks can be deceiving,” he rasps out around the burning and near-convulsing of his abraded throat. He winces as he realizes the last time he’d sounded like that—raspy, hoarse, and throat-sore—Reyes had been responsible, _then_ , too. Though in a far different, much more pleasant way.

 

Leaning next to Scott, against the bar but with his back to it, Reyes is neither close nor far, intimate nor impersonal, distance-wise. Scott, nonetheless, edges down the counter a bit, on legs that are less than steady.

 

“That, they can be, Pathfinder,” Reyes agrees, staring out into the rest of the bar, his dashing profile pleasant, but just barely on the side of not being smug.

 

Scott kind of hates the bastard.

 

“For one thing,” Reyes goes on lightly, quietly, “it _looks_ like one of the greatest pioneers and heroes in Human history is drowning his sorrows at the only bar in Heleus that’s even _more_ of a dive than _Tartarus_. And so soon after his and humanity’s greatest victory against the forces of tyranny, misrule, and puppy-shaming.”

 

Scott’s frown deepens, and he meets his own pale gaze in the blurry, mirrored surface behind the many bottles of liquor. It’s almost all bottom-shelf shit. Even the stuff on the top shelf.

 

He snorts. There’s a metaphor in there, somewhere, but language and its uses is more _Sara’s_ strong suit. Scott's good at the simpler things. Shooting shit, blowing shit up, and falling out of shit and screaming all the way down.

 

Smirking bitterly, he toasts his reflection and finishes his drink in one long, almost agonizing swallow. He coughs hard, but brief, before straightening as best he can and pushing off the bar-top.

 

“What—leaving so soon, Ryder?” Reyes asks, sounding on the verge of laughter. “Was it something I said?”

 

Scott’s face pales, then reddens under his olive complexion and wind-burn tan. He pays his bill with practiced jabs at his blurry omnitool, tipping Umi extravagantly, and continues to ignore Reyes Vidal. He staggers through the thicker-than-usual crowds, to the exit, forcing his legs to cooperate and shamble along in something approximating his usual intrepid swagger.

 

It takes a while to reach the exit. And some shoving and elbowing. Apparently avoiding extinction by the skin of everyone’s teeth is good for business in Kadara, no matter _what_ the business. Scott, himself, is offered _lots_ of freebies even on his way out the door: from drinks to blowjobs. He politely declines the offers with the playful, flirty eyes, and the infamous Harlow smile he and Sara had inherited from their mother.

 

Once outside, Scott’s face loses his mother’s charm and takes on his father’s stoic impassivity, keen, hawkish features gone as expressionless as an ancient stone idol. Blinking to clear his trebled and blurred vision, he takes a few deep breaths in an attempt to banish the fog in his head. The miasma of depression and loneliness—of _lostness_ —that’d been settling over him since the Archon’s defeat.

 

He shivers a bit in the slightly chilled air, after the humid warmth of the bar, and pulls his leather jacket closer around him, but doesn’t zip it up. Then he runs a hand through his somewhat sweaty, shoulder-length, ink-dark hair, glances up at the night sky for a few moments, then shoves his hands in his pockets and starts walking.

 

The direction doesn’t matter, really. All roads, it seems, lead to the _Tempest_ , in the end. Even if they didn’t . . . a Pathfinder who can’t find his way back to his own ship, even when skunked, is no kind of Pathfinder at all.

 

Safety-wise, it’s not like even the worst criminals are going to be interested in taking on the savior of Humanity-in-Andromeda, whether out of gratitude or cowardice. Even if they tried, even piss-drunk, Scott’s always been able to handle himself in any fight he can’t talk his way out of, though he’s been known to talk his way out of his fair share of them. Starting from his earliest memories of fights with Sara over toys and stupid kid-shit, to his later memories of near slug-matches with Dad, to the clusterfuck that has been his life since being thawed . . . Scott Ryder’s always been able to lay claim to the things he needed from life by talking them into the palm of his hand. Another gift passed down from Ellen Harlow Ryder.

 

And, until recently . . . it’s been a _good_ gift.

 

The problem in these latter days being, of course, what one did when what one needed wasn’t _at all_ what one wanted or expected—or even _wanted_ to want.

 

At the corner of . . . some street and . . . some other street, Scott pauses under the cold light of a flickering streetlamp, listing more than slightly to his right as he looks up at the blurring smear of barely-visible stars in the night sky. He blinks rapidly to clear stinging, burning tears from his throbbing eyes, as impatient as ever with his own sadness. His own _feelings_.

 

He supposes that with age, he becomes more and more like his father, in both looks and temperament. The thought both dismays and comforts him in equal measure. Alec Ryder had been a son-of-a-bitch . . . but an _impressive_ one. Impossible to relate to in a lot of ways . . . and impossible not to respect. A titan of a man, even to his wife and children.

 

And yet, in the end, like any other man— _every_ other man—he’d died utterly alone, for reasons he probably would’ve regretted, had he not ceased to be.

 

Scott snorts and checks his omnitool for the time, rather than ask SAM—dawn’s still a couple hours off—and notes only the faintest touch of SAM’s massive mind in the back of his. More of a feeler, in case Scott needs him. But the bulk of SAM’s mind is . . . elsewhere.

 

The AI has been . . . rather disapproving of his Pathfinder, of late. Well, disapproving of _one_ of them, anyway. At present, SAM has his hands full with doting on a recovering Sara, which . . . is understandable. SAM had _always_ been fonder of Sara, from his very inception . . . solicitous and almost . . . _courtly_. At first, Scott had been rather put-out and jealous . . . then amused and incredulous . . . then, as the utter futility of an artificial intelligence possibly having a crush on a human woman—Scott’s human woman- _sister_ —began to unspool itself as probable reality . . . it, like so many things, began to depress him, too.

 

Plus, even if he wants to ask Sara’s thoughts on the matter, he certainly _can't_. Not now or ever, with SAM looking over their shoulders. Heleus is a small, settled corner of a large, wild universe, and the last thing Scott needs is for that settled corner, that _home_ , to become . . . _uncomfortable_.

 

 _More_ uncomfortable.

 

Above him, that large, wild universe wheels and turns to some indecipherable rhyme and scheme, as brilliant and beautiful, grand and cruel as the very nature it contains. For a few minutes, Scott simply stands, enrapt, letting his blood and marrow _sing_ with the incurable _need_ to see what’s beyond the next horizon, and the one after that.

 

Not to mention the one after _that_.

 

A rueful smirk twists his lips as he stares into eternity, humbled beyond all attempts at categorizing, analyzing, and rationalizing. For Scott, in moments like this, the universe simply _is_ , like some Platonic Ideal. It’s _itself_ to the greatest possible degree of itself-ness that exists. It means nothing more or less than the totality of what it is. His perception of it neither quantifies nor mitigates the universe-ness of the universe.

 

Brilliant and beautiful?

 

Grand and cruel?

 

All just incomplete perceptions. A tiny mind’s attempt to make similarly tiny something that’s infinitely _big_. Though, in the end, it’s all just. . . .

 

Scott snorts. “Metaphysical horseshit,” he mutters, at last tearing his burning, blurred gaze away from the vault of stars above. Even as he turns back the way he’d come—he can’t imagine Reyes is still at _Kralla’s_ . . . not when _Tartarus_ will actually extend him a tab, whereas Umi is smart enough not to—to maybe resume his drinking, he collides with someone who’d apparently been standing silently behind him. His skin instantly prickles as his biotics come online, his every sense enhanced and thrumming, that strange _sixth_ sense of where to strike and _how_ flaring to bright, deadly-blue light within and around him. . . .

 

Only to gutter out a nanosecond later as his wide, bloodshot eyes light on a familiar face. His hand, frozen in the midst of raising to **PUSH** the other away, drops to his side even as he takes a step back.

 

“Reyes?!” falls from his dry, slightly chapped lips, small and horrified. The other man smirks, knowing and unafraid. Scott’s legs, still trying to stumble away from what he’d _almost done_ , get a bit tangled and he nearly goes sprawling on his ass.

 

“ _Careful_ , Pathfinder,” that warm voice, amused but slightly strained, says as strong hands catch his biceps in an iron grasp that’s both steadying and possessive, and pull him up. Pull him _close_. Scott blinks and finds himself looking up into intent, searching green eyes. “Bad things have been known to happen to the unwary in Kadara.”

 

Swallowing around his confused and rabbiting heart, Scott looks down at the scant space separating their bodies. This near, he can smell Reyes’s unique scent, like recycled air, expensive hooch, and some subtle, manly aftershave.

 

“You—you _are_ bad things that happen to the unwary in Kadara, Reyes,” Scott grits out in a voice that cracks and wavers, blinking furiously as his eyes start to burn and sting again. He struggles half-heartedly in Reyes’s grasp. “Let go of me.”

 

Reyes is staring down into his face with those damned _eyes_ of his, such a crazy, jungle-wild green. His brow is furrowed and despite the lightness of his previous tone, his face is more solemn and intent than Scott’s ever seen.

 

“Ryder,” he murmurs, that intense green gaze ticking to Scott’s mouth for a moment before meeting his eyes again. Reyes sighs and leans a bit closer, until Scott can barely think beyond the scent, heat, and _nearness_ of him. The totality and . . . _Reyes_ -ness of him. “ _Scott_ —”

 

“What do you _want_ from me, Reyes?” Scott demands, though it’s more of a plea, with the way his voice refuses to cooperate with the fuzzy rage and consternation swirling in his brain . . . and his heart. “I didn’t stop you from killing Sloane. I didn’t interfere with your take-over of Kadara. I didn’t even stop the Nexus big-wigs from dealing with you, and setting up outposts and trading. _You’ve won_. Gotten everything you wanted. So, what do you want from _me_?”

 

There’s a sad flicker in those jungle-wild eyes. “Can’t you guess?”

 

Scott shakes his head and looks away, suddenly very tired and very sad. He feels as if his entire body’s made of lead and regret. “I’m done playing your games, Reyes, guessing or otherwise.”

 

Reyes leans in a bit more, all but willing Scott to meet his gaze, but Scott continues to stare beyond the man’s left shoulder, at the empty, shadowed street beyond.

 

“I’m not playing games, Pathfinder. Maybe in the beginning, I . . . it was just fun and flirting. But that night after Sloane’s party . . . something changed.” Reyes sighs in frustration. “I kept lying to you about _what_ I am—about being the Charlatan—but I swear, I’ve _never_ lied to you about _who_ I am or who I want to _be_. Or who I want to be it _with_.”

 

Closing his eyes on the renewed stinging and burning, Scott shakes his head again. “I don’t _care_ what you want, Reyes. _Those_ days are over. _You and I_ are over. I meant what I said in that cave.”

 

“I know you did, Scott. I knew you _would_. That was why I . . . I couldn’t tell you. I knew that you wouldn’t forgive me for keeping secrets, nor yourself for siding with me in the aftermath.” Reyes’s voice is heavy and weary sounding. So is Scott’s when he laughs, bitter and mirthless, his pickled brain replaying the moments before Sloane’s death . . . when he could have _done_ something. _Anything_.

 

When he could’ve been _good_. Sacrificed the thing he wanted most for . . . well, principle, if not practice. Even now, Scott knows that Reyes is, in the long and short run, better for Kadara than Sloane Kelly ever was.

 

Scott _knows_ that . . . and _Reyes_ knows he knows that.

 

“Sounds like you were pretty sure I’d choose your life over Sloane’s.”

 

“I was,” Reyes admits softly, his voice somehow . . . naked and vulnerable. As naked and vulnerable as the eyes Scott finds himself blinking up at again. “That’s the only thing I’ve ever been sure of in this universe, aside from gravity. The way you look at me— _looked_ at me—was the first constant I’ve ever had that was _mine_ , and mine _alone_. I would have done and _would_ _do_ anything to have it again.”

 

“Except be honest with me, right?”

 

Reyes smiles, limp and wry. “Considering that a moment of honesty cost me the only thing that was ever _really_ mine . . . is it any wonder?”

 

Scott rolls his eyes, an angry laugh welling up out of him to ricochet off the buildings around them and the sky above. “You don’t get it, do you? Not for lack of trying, but because . . . you’re just not _capable_ of getting it. Like . . . that part of you is defective—built wrong. Honesty only costs when you _start out_ telling lies from Jump Street, Reyes, and . . . you just don’t see that. Maybe _can’t_.”

 

For a moment, Reyes simply stares at him blankly, still naked and vulnerable, and . . . Scott can _see_ them. See the bits of Reyes that are broken beyond repair . . . bits that maybe Reyes never had to _begin_ with and hadn’t learned to cobble together from experience and example, despite his fierce intelligence and innate charm.

 

Reyes Vidal is broken and incomplete in significant ways that Scott has tried so hard to overlook. Ways that are as impossible to _unsee_ as they are to explain. Ways that make Scott feel loneliest of all in the company of a man he _loves_ , however unwisely.

 

A man who’s clearly confused and struggling to make sense of what Scott’s saying—and just as clearly _can’t_ , and so leans in for a kiss, because that’s what’s _always_ worked between them, despite everything.

 

“I can’t,” Scott whispers, looking down again. Reyes’s soft, somehow reverent lips press to his forehead, where they linger. For long moments, Scott’s entire life seems to constrict around him. To be winnowing down to this very moment in a way that’s as unavoidable as entropy. “I _can’t_.”

 

“Why?” Reyes asks intently, so obviously not understanding the bind Scott’s in. The bitch of it is, that he _would_ , if he could. Would understand and do his best to be what Scott wants and _needs_ him to be. To be _Human_ in the ways that no one can teach or explain, only _be_. “ _Please_ , Scott . . . help me understand, and I’ll be whatever you _need_ me to be, if it means . . . if it means you’ll look at me like I’m _somebody_ to you again.”

 

“I . . . I can’t help you Reyes. I don’t think anyone can,” Scott apologizes and tries to pull out of Reyes’s grasp. “Let go of me,” he whispers again, face turned down once more because he can’t bear it that Reyes can look so Human and hurt . . . yet still be so very _hollow and broken_.

 

Reyes half-obeys: lets go of Scott’s right bicep. But he only does so to tip Scott’s face back up to his by the chin. His jungle-wild eyes are still so naked and vulnerable . . . so _innocent_ , after a fashion. Blameless and guiltless. The intense, but unashamed eyes of a man who will never, for all his attempts and seeming, grow or move out of the moral idiocy that will set him apart from the rest of humanity forever.

 

“If anyone can help me, Scott,” Reyes murmurs, his brows drawing together as he leans in once more. His forehead is warm and mostly unfurrowed against Scott’s. “If anyone can, Pathfinder, it’s you.”

 

“Reyes . . . you’re . . . _wrong_. About me being able to help you and . . . and wrong in some integral way that I don’t think I can bear to—” Scott blinks and tears fall from eyes he hadn’t been aware of closing. “I’m not a god, Reyes. I can’t rebuild you in anyone’s image, least of all my own. I can’t make you whole. Can’t make the things that matter to most of humanity matter to _you_. Can’t put you _right_. I’m _sorry_ , but I _can’t_. . . .”

 

Reyes sighs again, his palm cupping Scott’s face so, so gently. The way any person who genuinely cared would. And perhaps he _does_ . . . care . . . in his own alien, off-center way. Somewhere beneath the layers of seeming and the charade of personhood; beneath the assumed mantles of personality and character.

 

Somewhere beyond even the core of watchfulness and adaptability that is both the wellspring of Reyes’s genius and the barrier to any genuine connection to humanity as a whole . . . Reyes cares, or is _trying_ _to_ , as much as he’s able.

 

“I _know_ that I’m wrong, Scott,” he breathes, his urgent voice, for once, as broken as the bits of him Scott’d once hoped to gentle and believe into being a _real_ _boy_. “I know . . . that I’m more pretense than person. That eventually, sooner or later, the people in my life realize that and begin to . . . drift away. And it bothers me. It’s _always_ bothered me. I don’t know how to . . . to _be_ what anyone wants. Or didn’t, until I met you. The way you looked at me told me in a way no one ever had, that I was _someone_. A person. Maybe just to you, but that’s more than I’ve _ever_ had. More than I’ve ever _been_.” Reyes’s breath, whisky-warm and stuttered, puffs on Scott’s face in gentle gusts. “I’m only real when I’m with _you_. And . . . I want that. I _need_ that. I need _you_.”

 

“Reyes,” Scott begins—begins to pull away in earnest, his instinct on the verge of the kind of N7 shit that’s put stronger men than Reyes in traction. And in the ground. He forces down the knowledge of his own impending and complete capitulation, because _nothing's_ more dangerous than a Ryder backed into a corner. Especially one with hair-trigger biotics. “ _Don’t_.”

 

But before Scott’s conditioning and instinct can take action through the haze of alcohol and self-doubt, Reyes is kissing him. Not teasing and playful, like the morning after Sloane’s party, the better part of a half-liter of Mount Milgrom running through both their veins and Kadara’s sunrise making everything it touched seem . . . _magical_. . . .

 

Not even like he had that time in one of _Tartarus’s_ back rooms, just after the Zia Cordier-incident . . . _just after_ giving Scott the dirtiest, most thorough and _transcendent_ blowjob he’d ever received . . . one that’d left him sprawled on the sofa Reyes had so recently vacated, while the man in question had straddled his legs and kissed him, hard and possessive and so, so _desperately_. . . .

 

No, this kiss is . . . soft and sweet, passionate and pleading. As lacking in artifice and guile as Reyes Vidal is capable of being.

 

The sounds he’s making aren’t the low, hungry rumbles that go straight to Scott’s cock every time they come together like this, but helpless, high whimpers from the back of his throat that come whistling out of his nose.

 

“Reyes . . . Reyes, I _can’t_ be like you,” Scott pants when time plus a need for oxygen breaks the kiss. Reyes’s forehead is warm against his own once more, the hand not on Scott’s bicep curled gently, protectively at the small of his back.

 

“I don’t _want_ you to be _like_ me. Just . . . _be_ _with_ _me_.”

 

“I. . . .” _can’t be that, either_ , Scott means to say, because it’s true . . . isn’t it? Why _else_ the misery of the weeks since the triumph of his lifetime? Why else his distracted inability to reconnect with Sara and SAM? Why else his failed attempt at seducing _Gil Brodie_ , of all people? Why the increasingly worried looks from his crew—even Kallo and Drack?

 

Why—

 

“Whatever else I am and whatever else I’m _not_ ,” Reyes is whispering in that strangely rough and urgent voice, “let me be _whatever_ _you_ _want_.”

 

“You . . . you don’t know _how_ to be what I want, Reyes,” Scott says, and it, too, is almost an apology. It’s most certainly a regret. But, in the end, apologies and regrets mean nothing without decisive action. Scott’s father had taught him that. Had drilled it into him at an early age.

 

The appropriate decisive action at _this_ moment would be to walk away. Scott _knows_ that.

 

 _Reyes_ knows he knows that.

 

And yet. . . .

 

And yet.

 

A few minutes pass, in expectant silence, the only sounds besides the usual noises of The Wrong Side of the Tracks after the Witching Hour, is both their ragged, uneven breathing.

 

Finally, Reyes leans back, his face a blank mask of shock for long moments as he searches Scott’s eyes with laser-intent. Then those eyes narrow, Reyes’s mouth dropping open just a little as he starts to grin, disbelieving and stunned.

 

“Maybe not what you want—not _yet_ , anyway,” he demurs slowly, his eyes scanning every inch of Scott’s flushed, defeated face. “But I think I’m _exactly_ what you need.”

 

Scott opens his mouth to laughingly deny this, only for Reyes to kiss him again, hard then soft then hard again, with low rumbles and high snorts, as unexpected and pure as any kiss Scott’s ever been given. He submits to it without hesitation or reserve or restraint, kissing Reyes back for all he’s worth.

 

“You need a horizon to chase, Pathfinder,” Reyes asserts between kisses that all but steam in the chilly air. “A challenge that you can’t readily overcome. A mountain to climb and a thrill to seek. I can be _all_ those things for you. Gladly.”

 

“You’ll be the wall I shatter myself against, if I let you,” Scott breathes feeling more lost than ever . . . but somehow . . . _less_ _alone_. For the first time ever in the smuggler’s company . . . Scott feels the soft brush, tentative and barely-there, of whatever presence comprises the core of, but is obscured by the layers and laughter, teasing and tricks that make up _Reyes Vidal_. It’s startling, to say the least, and Scott shakes his head again. “When I’m with you, I . . . have no idea who I am, or who I’m _becoming_. I’m not even sure I _like_ that person.”

 

Reyes’ smirk is as rakish as ever, but tired, too. Strained and obvious. “I can like him enough for the both of us, Pathfinder. _I promise_.”

 

Scott rolls his eyes even as a smile tries to curve his mouth. “You’re . . . an asshole.”

 

“If you want me to be, yes.” The smirk slips into an equally tired smile. “I’ll be anything you ask, Scott, as long as it’s _someone,_ and you keep looking at me like I am.”

 

Actually smiling, now, Scott licks his lips. They don’t taste like bottom-shelf, alien rotgut, anymore, but like something expensive and Human and so very _Reyes_.

 

“Anything I ask, huh?” Scott muses, only half-jokingly.

 

“ _Anything_ , Scott.” Reyes leans his forehead against Scott’s once more, swaying them both to music only he can hear.

 

“Can you be—” _honest? Real? Honorable? Law-abiding? Moral? Empathetic? Sympathetic? Decent?_ “—good?”

 

And though Scott expects a joke or innuendo— _some_ sort of quintessential Reyes-deflection—the other man appears to give the request some serious thought before huffing out an almost puzzled answer.

 

“I . . . don’t know?” he offers tentatively, then makes a frustrated sound. “That is, I’ve never _been_ . . . good. At least, not on-purpose.” Scott can’t see the frown from this close, but he can hear it in Reyes’s impatient sigh. “But for you, Scott . . . I can try.”

 

Scott laughs, though it sounds and feels a little like a sob. “Do you even know what _good is,_ Reyes?”

 

“I know that it’s difficult and it hurts,” Reyes says tersely, shrugging. “I know that even _you_ struggle to be good, Ryder, and you’re the best man I’ve ever known.”

 

“God, Reyes, don’t make _me_ your exemplar for what’s good!” Scott laughs again, uncomfortable and red-faced. Reyes’s cool, dry fingers brush his stubbly cheek as gently as Scott’s ever wanted.

 

“Too late.” Reyes shrugs again. “You’re my . . . _everything_. All the pieces I’m missing. All the blueprints I need to mend the broken bits.”

 

“I can’t even mend _my_ broken bits!” Scott blurts out, torn between rage and despair for several long moments. Moments in which Reyes holds him tighter and strokes his face even more tenderly.

 

“Well, Ryder . . . if anyone can show you how to be broken in grand fashion. . . .” Reyes leans back, his smirk once more out in force, this time sans weariness. “Reyes Vidal: at your service.”

 

Scott blinks at Reyes for the better part of a minute, his mind a whirling maelstrom of uncertainties and doubts and fears. But in the center of all that, in the eye of that storm, is one piece of knowledge that has a ring of truth he can’t ignore.

 

“I don’t always know what’s right and wrong, anymore,” he admits quietly, his voice cracking once again. But he senses he has Reyes’s full attention. _Knows_ that he’s had that from almost the very beginning. “Don’t know how to be the person my father was or tried to be. Don’t know how to be the person _I_ was, or tried to be. I just know that . . . being with you may not make any goddamned sense on _any_ level . . . but it _feels right_. It feels _good_ , at a time when . . . those feelings are luxury items even a Pathfinder can’t often afford. The only _bad feeling_ is . . . when I try to _fight_ that rightness and goodness because of the package it comes in.”

 

“Are you . . . saying you don’t like my package, Ryder?” Reyes’s jungle-wild eyes are a blur of speculative green and black. “Because, let me assure you . . . _shena_ is just one of _many_ apropos nicknames I’ve . . . earned.”

 

Snorting, Scott bounces up on his toes so that he’s eye-level with Reyes. The hand that had been resting at the small of his back is now possessive and heavy on the curve of his ass. “And _boy_ , have you earned it.”

 

“But I’m _never_ one to rest on laurels won.” And with that, Reyes claims Scott’s mouth in a kiss that, though relatively brief—it’s not even false-dawn when Reyes teases his way out of the intense contact with one final squeeze of Scott’s ass—leaves Scott shivering and needy, devastated and hard. Yet, oddly enough, that maelstrom within has begun to subside, some. _Not_ completely—never _that_ . . . not this side of the grave—but some. “ _Come_ _with me.”_

 

Scott knows Reyes means that in every possible sense of the word, even if Scott, himself _doesn’t_ yet know all that coming with Reyes would entail. But then . . . Scott’s purpose in life, the one he was bred for, is to step into the unknown with eyes and arms wide open.

 

And guns a-blazing, if necessary.

 

“I don’t put out on the second date,” he says. _Lies_ , and probably because of Reyes’s damning influence. The other man chuckles knowingly, his jungle-wild eyes flashing like danger and star-shine, with great anticipation.

 

“There’s a first time for everything, Pathfinder.”

 

Then they’re kissing again, wet and lewd and _perfect_ . . . with Scott pushing Reyes back and back and back, until they collide with some storefront or other. They’re held up by the metal-alloy siding of the shop, out of the cold light of stars, moon, and lamps, sunk deep into the shadows . . . where Reyes has _always_ lived and where Scott . . . just may be able to make a part-time home.

 

“I . . . have _bad_ taste in men,” he mutters shakily on Reyes’s once more smiling— _always smiling_ —mouth. The smuggler huffs a low, somewhat breathless laugh as he holds Scott close and tight.

 

 _This is_ good. My _good_ , Scott accepts, holding Reyes back just as tight because to do otherwise would be . . . unthinkable. The man may not be an Ideal, Platonic or otherwise . . . but he’s _Scott’s_. And that _counts_ for something. “Like, _really_ bad.”

 

“The worst,” Reyes agrees tenderly, before capturing Scott’s mouth in another effortlessly devastating kiss.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Stitchcasual's Prompt: “Ryder/Reyes kissing in a corner.”
> 
> Send me love on [The Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


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